EUROPEAN COMMISSION:President Juncker receives U.S. Vice-President Pence

President Juncker receives U.S. Vice-President Pence




Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker today received U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence at the Commission's Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels.


President Juncker welcomed the Vice-President of the United States to Brussels today as part of his first overseas trip to Europe since taking office. President Juncker emphasised the importance of a strong EU-US relationship for global stability and recalled the many decades of partnership between the European Union and the United States.

President Juncker and Vice-President Pence reaffirmed their commitment

European Commission - Speech - [Check Against Delivery]

Press statement by European Commission President Juncker on the occasion of the visit of Mike Pence, Vice-President of the United States

Brussels, 20 February 2017

I am very happy to welcome wholeheartedly the Vice-President of the United States. I am very grateful for the fact that he chose Europe for his first overseas trip. He was in Munich, as everyone knows. We were listening carefully to what he was saying.

And we will address – after the conversation the Vice-President has had with President Tusk – all the items, issues, subjects which are common to Europe and which sometimes can give the impression that there are raising divergences.

I do not think that the moment has come to divide the U.S. and the European Union. We are partners for so many decades in the world. The global stability is heavily depending on the good relations between the United States of America and the European Union. 

I do think that the U.S. needs a strong and united European Union on all possible issues – defence, where we want to step up our own defence efforts, including in a broader understanding of what stability in the world means: defence expenditure and humanitarian aid and development aid.

I do think that the economic relations between our American friends and ourselves are of huge importance. The U.S. economy is depending more than some in the U.S. do think on the exchanges, the trade volumes – including Indiana, by the way – between the U.S. and the European Union.

This is not a moment for Europe to divide itself in former national, provincial categories but to stand united when it comes to global issues. And that is what we will discuss in the next coming hour.

Mike, you have the floor.

SPEECH/17/313